


the best passover passever

by floweryfran



Series: it is you i love more than anyone [4]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Ben Parker, Awesome May Parker (Spider-Man), Ben Parker Lives, Jewish Ben Parker, Jewish Peter Parker, Kid Peter Parker, Passover, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), Precious Peter Parker, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Peter Parker, jews post battle of ny as a metaphor for covid jews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: The local Jewish markets are closed, and all the buses and subways are still shut down from the attack yesterday. May has been working non-stop since the first ship landed, and she has the car. The supermarkets that aren’t destroyed are running strange hours with almost no supplies left.None of that even matters in the long-run, however, what with the five-borough quarantine going on until the government confirms whether or not there are any remaining live Chitauri in hiding, or if there was any sort of public contamination via radiation or alien material.
Relationships: Ben Parker & Peter Parker
Series: it is you i love more than anyone [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676065
Comments: 47
Kudos: 194





	the best passover passever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/gifts).



> based upon this tumblr post: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/floweryfran/blog/brightlotusmoon/614711751535181824
> 
> seek, this is for you, my dear, my darling, because you encouraged me and you are always just the sweetest human around <333
> 
> i didn't want to write about miss 'rona because she gets enough attention as it is, but this idea presented itself so i figured the battle of ny might present similar circumstances!
> 
> to all my jewish readers, my heart is with you <3

“Okay,” Ben says, marching loops through the apartment, unable to stop. “Okay, okay, we’ll figure this out. Let’s put our—big brains together and figure this out, okay, buddy? We got this.”

Peter is standing in the kitchen, nearly-empty box of matzah in his hands, barefoot and stumped.

“We can—how do you make matzah? Can we do that? Do you think we can, like, handle that?”

“We burned oatmeal yesterday,” Peter reminds Ben. 

“This is shlock,” Ben mumbles. He passes through the living room and into Peter’s sightline again. “Utter shlock, Petey, you hear me?”

“Shlock,” Peter agrees.

“Don’t say that,” Ben says. He continues to yank on the hair at the nape of his neck and Peter is a little bit afraid he’s going to pull it out. Ben isn’t balding, but this might make him start. 

“We’ve still got two pieces left,” Peter says, giving the box a little shake.

“The one time _ever_ in our whole lives we don’t got matzah coming out the ears,” Ben says, shaking his hands in the air. Peter thinks that if Ben saw himself, he'd say he’s plotzing. “The one time! And aliens come outta the sky to attack New York. Imagine that, Petey, antisemitic aliens. Coming in right before Passover, I’m in disbelief.”

“It’s pretty rude of them,” Peter says. 

“Little pishers,” Ben grumbles. 

Peter thinks it’s telling in itself that Ben is bringing out all his best Yiddish for this. Ben doesn’t speak it all the time, on account of the aliens not being the only antisemites in New York, but when he does, he speaks it like it’s his weapon with a well-worn leather handle in the shape of his palm. This whole situation is definitely deserving of some sword-stabbing or something. 

The local Jewish markets are closed, and all the buses and subways are still shut down from the attack yesterday. May has been working non-stop since the first ship landed, and she has the car. The supermarkets that aren’t destroyed are running strange hours with almost no supplies left. 

None of that even matters in the long-run, however, what with the five-borough quarantine going on until the government confirms whether or not there are any remaining live Chitauri in hiding, or if there was any sort of public contamination via radiation or alien material. 

In other words, this is disastrous. Matzah is half of Peter’s diet even when it _isn’t_ Passover, but tomorrow is the first night and they’re sort of doomed.

“We should check if we have flour, at least,” Peter says. “To make it ourselves.”

Ben stops walking, finally, and looks over at Peter. Ben gives him a soft smile, his shoulders drooping a little. “Think we should give it the old college try?” Ben says.

Peter nods the affirmative.

“Alright, buddy,” Ben says, and he heads to the cabinets above the microwave, where May usually keeps the flour and the onions and the peanut butter and the unopened soap bottles because she has a very strange sense of where to put things in a kitchen. 

Ben shuffles things around and then pulls out the flour bag, showing to Peter the remnants of dust at the bottom.

“Hmm,” says Peter.

“I really don’t know what to do, kiddo,” Ben says, frowning. He keeps shaking the bag as if the movement will summon more flour into it. “I know the oil lasted longer than it shoulda’, but I really can’t see this much flour making us enough matzah for the week.”

“That’s not even enough for, like, one piece,” Peter agrees.

Ben is still frowning. Peter hates that, so he reaches out and prods the corner of Ben’s lips with his free hand, pushing it into a false grin. 

A real smile grows then, and Ben bends over to pull Peter into a tight hug, Peter hooking his chin over Ben’s shoulder. Ben lifts him up and sits him on the edge of the counter, taking a step back so they can meet each other’s eyes.

Peter doesn’t like the look on Ben’s face. He looks sick. Almost tormented.

“Hey,” Peter says, sitting the matzah box on his knees. “What about _pikuach nefesh?”_

Ben looks at Peter, cocks his head to the side. “Do you think that counts here?”

“Well,” says Peter. He shakes the matzah box. “This is all our unleavened bread. We've got some quinoa in the fridge, but, like, not much. And we can’t eat, uh—”

_“Kitniyot,”_ Ben supplies. “Rice, corn, beans.”

“Peanut butter,” Peter says mournfully.

“Peanut butter,” Ben agrees with a half-grin.

“So what does that even leave us to eat? What do we have in the fridge?”

Ben opens the door and peers inside. “Um, some salmon—I’m pretty sure that’s, like, a week old actually. Chicken breast. Here’s some cauliflower. Uh, eggs, we’ve got plenty of eggs. Lettuce. Some—moldy yogurt, gross, I’ll toss that.”

“That’s, like, one meal,” says Peter. “We don’t know when the stores are gonna open again.”

Ben checks the freezer as if Peter hadn’t spoken. “Aha! Some frozen cod. And, uh, one bag of frozen peas, which we can’t eat.”

“Ah,” says Peter. “Sounds like we’re gonna die.”

Ben keeps facing the fridge. He raises a hand and scratches the back of his neck. 

“Ben,” Peter says, sing-song, quiet. “Beeeen. Come on, look at me.”

Ben takes a breath, then does. 

_“Pikuach nefesh_ is literally a thing especially for moments like this,” Peter says quietly, kicking his feet in the air off the counter. “We can’t leave the house to get food, and supermarkets can’t deliver, and the food we _do_ have, we mostly can’t eat. This is the loophole that keeps us alive until the next Passover.” He rubs his elbow and shrugs a little. “Besides, I’m not saying we should, like, eat chicken alfredo or something. I just mean we could eat pasta, or a sandwich on, like, regular bread if we have to, just this once. We’re doing it ‘cuz we gotta, not ‘cuz we want to.”

Ben keeps looking at Peter, that look where he traces Peter’s face as if he’s wondering what planet he picked this kid up from. He comes to stand in front of Peter, then, and leans forward just enough to drop a lingering kiss on his forehead that makes Peter hum happily. “When did you get so wise, kiddo?” Ben mumbles. “You’re embarrassing me.”

Peter shrugs. “Hey, this is like a reenactment now,” he says. He reaches out and pulls on Ben’s sleeve. “This is, like, um, we can pretend we’re in the desert fending for ourselves like our ancestors. We’re basically hunter-gatherers now. If we’re gonna do this, we should at least make it exciting, right? I think Safta would have liked that. She always said we were too lucky growing up and we needed a little hardship to define our character, or whatever.” Safta was Ben’s mom, who died two years ago, and she would have kicked a demon between the legs for not complimenting her mezuzah. 

“Us staying inside is the only thing keeping our people from succumbing to plague,” says Ben, playing along, hunching a little bit and wagging his eyebrows, which Peter thinks is a show for his sake but hopes Ben starts to feel it, too, to replace that terrible guilt written in the smile-lines across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. 

“That’s pretty kosher if you ask me,” says Peter pointedly. He yanks on Ben’s sleeve again. “Hey. We’re single-handedly saving our community. We’re basically heroes.”

Ben straightens up. “Who needs Iron Man when you’ve got Kinder-Jew and his trusty sidekick, Mister Mensch.”

“Well,” says Peter with a wince, because he thinks the world will always need Iron Man. “Let’s just kick Captain America out, instead. You and me. We can put menorahs on our armor, right over our chests. They can glow like the arc reactor.”

Ben snorts a laugh and lifts Peter off the counter, Peter’s legs round Ben’s waist, Ben’s arms around Peter’s. Ben spins them a little, then shifts Peter so he’s held under his arm like a football, the way Ben has always done, and Ben swings him around, making these stupid swooshing noises with his mouth, and Peter is _eleven,_ he’s too old for this, but he’s laughing with his whole chest, his glasses slipping off his nose and his sock hanging off his foot and Ben is warm and big and Ben, so Peter sticks his arms straight out like he’s flying and lets Ben toss him around, lets Ben pretend to punch out bad guys when he’s really just a law clerk in Bed-Stuy, lets Ben jump on the couch beside him, the floor creaking beneath them and the couch cushions slipping and sending them sprawling, the downstairs neighbor swatting at the ceiling to get them to shut up, laughing so hard his ribs ache and his lungs wheeze. Lets Ben and him pretend that this Passover will be infinitely better than the others, and believes it, too, because it’s them, and they can make anything brilliant just by being Ben and Peter.

“Alright,” Ben says, once they’ve tuckered themselves out, laying flat on the carpet. “Let’s… try and finish everything non-Passover approved that we can tonight. How about a big pasta bake? I bet we have tomato puree, so I’ll make your nonna’s sauce and we’ll savor the last legal rigatoni we’ll have before we become Jews on the lam?”

“Jews on the _lamb,”_ Peter corrects, accenting the _b,_ nudging Ben in the side. 

Ben turns his head on the carpet and wrinkles his nose at Peter. “We really are making this an immersive Passover, ain’t we? Scrounging and scavenging with no resources but what we’ve got shoved in the cabinets?”

“I mean, the Jews didn’t have cabinets with them back then,” Peter says, “but yeah. Like one of those historical towns, like, fake Jamestown or whatever.”

Ben snorts and jabs Peter in the belly, tickling him. “Should we wear robes made of towels and pretend the trek from the living room to the kitchen is the length of the desert?”

Peter’s eyes glow.

When May is finally sent home to shower and sleep before her next shift, she finds Peter and Ben wrapped in towel togas and seated under the dining table, big dishes of pasta in their laps and candles sending the angles of their faces into stark relief. 

Peter grins and yells, “May! We’re the Jews!”

“You sure are, Petey,” she says amusedly.

Ben keeps snickering into his plate as he points to the towels they had left laying on the couch.

May takes a look at them, then at the boys, then back at the towels.

Of course she ends up under the table with them, eating Ben’s pasta and feeling a strange breeze just about everywhere, wondering why it is that being Jew-adjacent as she is has brought her so much more joy than being raised Catholic ever had.

Peter lurches into her side, explaining with broad gestures their plan for the next week, and enjoying the way May watches him with her keen, sharp eyes, taking in every word and nodding slightly. When Peter finishes, a little breathless from eating and talking at once, May musses his hair and says, _“Chag sameach,_ you two. I’m right here with you, however we do it this year.”

Peter grabs May’s hand and dives into Ben’s lap, Ben lifting his pasta dish high into the air so Peter doesn’t upend it, and Peter nestles there, in the cage of his favorite people, grateful for another holiday season in any form, grateful that they have the option to celebrate at all, even if it feels different than other years, grateful that they’ve made it to another year together despite stupid antisemitic aliens and stupid prejudiced regular people and all the stupid circumstances. Here another year, and Peter thanks G-d.

_Chag sameach to all celebrating._

**Author's Note:**

> take this offering from me, my jewish friends, on this eve of passover, where i’m sure many jews will find themselves in the same position as peter and ben. celebrate however you can, you badass, resilient people. this time of our lives sucks, but you are strong and brilliant and i have much love for you all. 
> 
> translations:  
> shlock: cheaply-made crap  
> plotz: to be so overwrought you're gonna explode  
> pishers: bed-wetters  
> pikuach nefesh (Hebrew: פיקוח נפש, IPA: [piˈkuaχ ˈnefeʃ], "saving a life") describes the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule. / Most of Jewish law can and should be set aside in order to avoid endangering a person's health or safety. -- https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/saving-a-life-pikuach-nefesh/  
> kitniyot: cannot be eaten during passover -- for an article defining this, i used this: https://toriavey.com/what-foods-are-kosher-for-passover/  
> i know this is an article on a cooking site but it helped me figure out what can and can't be eaten during passover better than most articles out there, no joke  
> mensch: a stand-up guy  
> chag sameach: sameach means "happy" or "joyful," chag is a "holiday." 
> 
> <333


End file.
